Prestigious mathematics prize to be awarded to Indian professor

New Delhi: Radha Charan Gupta has been chosen to be awarded the Kenneth O. May Prize for the History of Mathematics for his work on the history of development of trigonometry in India.

A retired mathematics professor, Gupta, is the first Indian to receive the award, which will be conferred at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Hyderabad during August 19-27, being held in India for the first time.

Named after mathematician and historian Kenneth O. May, founder of the International Commission for the History of Mathematics and instituted in 1989, the award consists of a bronze medal and is given once in four years in recognition of a mathematician's scholarly work in the field.

The nine-day ICM meet will be attended by around 3,000 delegates from across the globe and will be inaugurated by President Pratibha Patil.

Ford India begins export of compact car Figo

Flags off first consignment to South Africa; looks at other markets.

Chennai: Ford Figo, the compact car from Ford India, is going international.

The first consignment of 1,200 Figos was flagged off to Durban, South Africa, from the Chennai port by Ford India's President and Managing Director, Mr Michael Boneham, in the presence of the Chairman of Chennai Port Trust, Capt Subhash Kumar.

There is an order for 5,000 Figos from South Africa. “We are also looking at other emerging markets for Figo and will soon announce the new destinations other than the US and Europe,” he told newspersons at the Chennai port.

Export hub

The Indian plant will be the only Ford unit to export Figos. “We want to make India the export hub for Figo,” he said.

Ford India will export the 1.4-litre petrol and diesel Figo variants to Ford Motor Company of South Africa.

“Just as the Figo has taken the Indian market by storm, we are confident that it will have a similar impact in South Africa,” said Mr Boneham, who will be in South Africa shortly to receive the consignment.

It will take two weeks for the vehicles to reach Durban through the ro-ro ship operated by K-Line, the Japanese shipping line.

Since its debut in March, the Ford Figo has generated over 24,000 purchase orders for Ford India. In June, Ford India sold 7,269 units compared with 1,982 units in June 2009, a 267 per cent rise. Mr Boneham said Ford India had been exporting the ‘Fiesta' in the last four years.

It also exports nearly 2,500 engines a month to Thailand, where the Ford unit in the country will soon launch the Fiesta.

Mr Boneham said Ford India today commenced its second shift at the company's plant in Maraimalai Nagar near Chennai to meet the increasing demand for Figo. This will increase the production capacity of the small car by 30-40 per cent.

The company plans to hire 600-700 personnel at the plant and most of them would be diploma holders and fresh pass-outs.

Ford India manufactures Ikon, Endeavour, Fiesta and Figo. It employs around 4,000 people.

Indian services sector witnesses two-year high growth in June 2010

New Delhi: The services sector in India grew at its fastest in two years in June 2010 led by an increase in business expectations and new orders.

According to the HSBC Markit Business Activity Index, based on a survey of 400 firms, the service sector rose to 64.0 in June 2010 from 58.2 in May 2010, pointing to a substantial rate of growth as a figure above 50 indicates expansion.

All the 6 sub-sectors covered by the survey recorded growth in new business ventures since May 2010, with postal services and telecommunications registering the fastest expansion.

The survey also highlighted that the Indian services companies raised their charges for the seventh consecutive month.

India second on the Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index: Deloitte

New Delhi: India ranks second, in terms of manufacturing competence as per the 2010 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index; a result of the collaboration between Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and the US Council on Competitiveness.

"In less than a decade, a new world order for manufacturing competitiveness has emerged along with a tectonic shift in regional manufacturing competence," the report said. Furthermore, the detailed report highlighted that the rise in the manufacturing competitiveness of three countries in particular—China (10), India (8.15) and the Republic of Korea (6.79)—appears to be parallel to the rapidly expanding and important Asian market.

"Perhaps more surprising is that India is now positioned at number two and gaining an even stronger foothold on that position over the next five years," the report said. In addition, the report brought to light India's rich talent pool of scientists, researchers, and engineers along with its vast, educated English-speaking workforce and the democratic administration; in all making it an attractive destination for the manufacturers.

Noting that since the mid-1990s, India's software industry has increased to new heights and post-economic liberation has also opened a pathway to unprecedented market opportunities for Indian manufacturing, the report said moreover, beyond low-cost, Indian manufacturers gained experience in quality improvement and Japanese principles of quality management, with the largest number of Deming Award winners outside of Japan.

The report further points out that "The country is also rapidly expanding its capabilities in engineering design and development and embedded software development, which forms an integral part of many modern-day manufactured products."

IMF lifts India growth forecast to 9.4% in 2010

New Delhi: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday raised its India growth forecast for 2010 to 9.4 per cent from 8.8 per cent estimated in April.

In its July update of the World Economic Outlook (WEO) projections, the Washington-based multilateral agency, however, kept unchanged its 2011 India growth forecast at 8.4 per cent.

In a report released today, the IMF said that India's GDP growth is expected to accelerate to 9.4 per cent in 2010 as robust corporate profits and favourable financing conditions fuel investments.

The Government expects the country's economic growth to be over 8.5 per cent in 2010-11 (April-March). The growth forecast made by IMF and the Indian government are strictly not comparable, as they count different months for arriving at an annual period.

While IMF forecast is for the calendar year 2010, the Government makes its growth projection for fiscal year (April-March).

Reacting to the IMF's India GDP growth forecast upgrade, Mr T.C.A. Anant, Chief Statistician of India, told Business Line that this was a positive signal and reflected their confidence in the economic growth outlook for India in the near term.

“IMF is an independent body monitoring India. It is a positive signal. If there are similar signals and confirmation from other agencies (monitoring the Indian economy), it will give greater confidence to us about the Government's own assessment of the growth prospects for the year,” Mr Anant said.

Meanwhile, in the July update, the IMF has raised its global growth forecast for 2010 to 4.5 per cent from its earlier estimate of 4 per cent in the April 2010 WEO, reflecting stronger activity in the first half of 2010 (January-June).

The IMF said that the higher growth was on expectations of a modest but steady recovery in most advanced economies and strong growth in many developing and emerging economies.

At the same time, IMF has noted that downside risks have risen sharply amid renewed financial turbulence.

IMF expects the Chinese economy to grow by 10.5 per cent in 2010. It also said that the first quarter GDP numbers in Asia were generally stronger than anticipated at the time of the April 2010 WEO and high frequency indicators suggest that economic activity remained brisk during the second quarter.

The GDP growth forecast for Asia has been revised upwards to about 7.5 per cent from about 7 per cent in the April WEO.

Dr Pronab Sen, Principal Advisor, Planning Commission said that he was not surprised by the IMF move to raise India GDP growth forecast to 9.4 per cent.

“It is not a surprise. It was on expected lines given that we had a strong GDP performance in January-March 2010 (Q1 for IMF's calculation) and will also have good one in April-June (Q2 for IMF's calculation) due to base effect,” Dr Sen told Business Line.

He highlighted that the January-March quarter had the highest weightage in GDP calculation. There was also stronger than expected growth performance in that quarter. “The fourth quarter (January-March) is usually the best quarter for us,” Dr Sen said.

When IMF came up with its initial forecast in April, it was unlikely that they would have factored the actual numbers for January-March 2010.

“Since now they are getting a better idea of the performance in the two quarters — January-March and April-June — which are high growth-cum-high weightage periods, they have pushed up the growth forecast,” Dr Sen said.

Dr Sen maintained that there was still a question mark over sustainability of investments even as many positive indications had emerged in the recent months.

Infosys @ 30: The Story so far

It was a middle-class Indian’s dream and today after 30 years, Infosys has changed the way people look at India. Seven Indian men took the risk to think out of the box and it paid off. Thirty years on, Infosys is India’s most reputed company and is one of the best known brands in the global market.

On this day, NR Narayan Murthy and his six colleagues who worked with Patni Computer Systems, started Infosys Technologies in Pune with a meagre capital of Rs 10,000.

Infosys is synonymous with India’s IT growth. The main aim was to provide a world-class work environment and put India on the global map. The entrepreneurial dream of Narayan Murthy saw its first result in 1987, when the company signed a joint venture with Kurt Salmon Associates in US.

Major milestones in their 30-year-old journey:


2010

Infosys voted as the ‘Best Managed Company’ in India by Finance Asia

2009

Employee strength grew to over 1,00,000

2008

Revenues crossed USD 4.18 billion

2007

Reported Q2 revenue of over USD 1 billion. Annual revenues crossed USD 3 billion

2006

N. R. Narayana Murthy retired from the services of the company on turning 60.

Infosys celebrated 25 years. Revenues crossed USD 2 billion

Progeon was re-christened as Infosys BPO Ltd, effective 29 August 2006.

2005

Won the Global – Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) award

2004

Infosys Technologies became the first Indian listed software company to have a net profit of Rs 1,000 crore or more.

2003

Subsidiaries established in China and Australia

2002

Nandan M. Nilekani took over as CEO

2001

Offices opened in UAE and Argentina and a development centre in Japan

2000

Opened offices in France and Hong Kong, a global development center in Canada and UK and three development centers in the US

1999

Infosys was listed on NASDAQ

1993

Infosys got listed on BSE on June 14, 1993

1987

First international office at Boston, US

Infosys wanted to make an impact in the American market. The same year, the company opened its office in Boston. However in 1988, their KSA joint venture collapsed and Murthy and his associates were left in the lurch. During this period, one of their founding partners Ashok Arora, quit the company to join as a consultant in the US. But Murthy didn’t lose hope. His team continued with their struggle.

Their initial foray into US was through their first client Data Basics Corp. Then there was no looking back. The company went public in 1993 and introduced employee stock option. On the opening day itself, it was traded at Rs 115, though it was listed at Rs 95.

By then, it had started expanding its operations in US. Even today Infosys is the largest publicly traded IT services exporter in India, providing services to 315 large corporations, such as GE and Nortel, predominantly in the USA.

By the late 90s, it started expanding its operations in UK, Europe and Canada. In 1999, it became the first Indian company to be listed in Nasdaq. By this time, it started looking at options in the industry. It launched its business consulting services.

The Y2K fear had gripped the world by now. But Infosys was growing strong and its revenues touched $200mn in 2000 as India was now turning to be the IT hub.

Major acquisitions and partnerships

2010

Infosys Technologies chosen to manage Microsoft’s Internal IT Services

2009

Telstra selected Infosys as a key partner to support its five-year $450 million AUD application development and maintenance contracts.

2008

BBVA and Finacle from Infosys signed a Strategic Global Partnership.

2007

The company bought three of the service centers of Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics NV for $28 million.

2005

Infosys signed five-year global IT deal with ABN AMRO.

By then, Narayan Murthy had become a renowned entrepreneur and was listed among Time Magazine/CNN’s 25 most influential businessmen in the world.

Infosys became a household name and it was a dream for every youngster to be part of the global software giant. It was the most admired company in India – India’s pride.

In 2002, it was time for Murthy to step down as CEO and hand over the responsibility to Nandan Nilekani (one of the founding members). The team of seven was now reduced to five. But Murthy ensured he continued to be a mentor to his team.

Infosys knew it had to spread its wings and in 2003, it went on with its first major acquisition. It acquired Infosys Export Info services in Australia.

In 2005, it signed a landmark IT deal with ABN AMRO bank, which was considered as a key step to enter and expand its portfolio. It continued to expand its operations and ventured into BPO services and bought US firm McCamish systems. It also signed a major five-year deal with T-Mobile in UK.

In 2006, Nilekani stepped down to pave way to Kris Gopalakrishnan. Under Nilekani, the company aggressively went on acquiring or tying up with firms across the globe.

The government of India noticing his capabilities roped him to head the Unique Identity project. Due to this commitment, Nilekani sold all his shares and resigned from all the responsibilities he was handling in Infosys.

Today, the company stands tall with 1.13 lakh employees. That said, with founders still dominating the top rung, experts say it is time for the company to choose its successor to continue its success story.

HSBC buys RBS's India retail, commercial bank operations

LONDON: HSBC Holdings said it would buy the Indian retail and commercial banking businesses of Royal Bank of Scotland as the part-nationalised UK bank continues its retreat from overseas markets.

HSBC said it would pay a premium of up to $95 million over the tangible net asset value of the businesses when the deal completes, expected in the first half of next year. The price could be reduced if bad debts in the business increase during the next two years.

Sources have previously said HSBC would buy the businesses, which have 1.1 million customers, over 1,800 staff and 31 branches.

The portfolios had a gross asset value of $1.8 billion at the end of March. HSBC currently has about 2 million customers and 50 branches across 29 cities in the hard-to-enter Indian market.

RBS, 83 percent owned by the UK government, has sold a string of small non-core business in recent weeks as it refocuses on its key strengths. It is reversing a decade-long international expansion drive and has raised over $2.5 billion from exiting or selling over 20 businesses in the last 14 months

RBI hikes repo & reverse repo rates by 25 bps

MUMBAI: Reserve Bank of India on Friday raised its key short-term interest rates by 25 basis points each, citing worries over inflation, nearly Wholesale price index (WPI) inflation rose to 10.2 percent in May, from 9.6 percent in April, exceeding expectations. The Reserve Bank of India raised its main lending rate, or repo rate, to 5.50 percent from 5.25 percent, and the reverse repo rate, at which it absorbs excess cash from the banking system, to 4 percent, from 3.75 percent, it said in a statement.

"There has been some moderation in food price inflation, but the price index of food articles continues to increase," the central bank said. "More importantly, the prices of non-food manufactured goods and fuel items have accelerated in recent months," it said.

The rate hike comes soon after the Indian government raised fuel prices that it said would lift inflation by nearly one percentage point.

The central bank said that while inflation and GDP growth data had been available by mid-June, it had been inadvisable to raise policy rates then as the financial system was dealing with liquidity pressures resulting from higher than expected payments for wireless spectrum in government auctions.

"It's a welcome move but probably RBI should have moved a little more aggressively -- not now, but earlier in April or May," said Jay Shankar, economist at Religare capital. "The rate hike quantum is okay as we have a liquidity crunch scene right now. But it has come too late," he said.

Airport body scanners may cause cancer: Scientist

LONDON: At a time when airports around the globe are planning to install full body scanners to maximise security, the US Congress has been warned that the X-ray imaging could increase the risk of skin cancer in air passengers.

The body scanners emit radiation up to 20 times more powerful than previously thought and could be particularly risky for children, said Dr David Brenner, head of Columbia University's centre for radiological research.

Although the "individual risks" associated with X-ray backscatter scanners are probably extremely small, it could multiply with the number of scanning, he said.

"If all 800 million people who use airports every year were screened with X-rays then the very small individual risk multiplied by the large number of screened people might imply a potential public health or societal risk. The population risk has the potential to be significant," Dr Brenner was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

There should be more research on the device to look at the way it affects specific groups who could be more sensitive to radiation, he said.

According to him, children and passengers with gene mutations -- around one in 20 of the population -- are more at risk as they are less able to repair X-ray damage to their DNA. The most likely risk from the airport scanners is a common type of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma, he said.

The cancer is usually curable and often occurs in the head and neck of people aged between 50 and 70. Dr Brenner pointed out that it would be difficult to hide a weapon on the head or neck so proposes missing out that part of the body from the scanning process.

"If there are increases in cancers as a result of irradiation of children, they would most likely appear some decades in the future. It would be prudent not to scan the head and neck," he added.

Dr Brenner, who is originally from Liverpool but now works at the New York university, recently aired his concerns to the Congressional Biomedical Caucus in the US -- members of Congress who meet to exchange ideas on medical research.

He urged them to look at his concerns but said it was important to balance any health issues against passengers' safety when flying.

Nano: Celebrating one year of being on the road

There has been great hype about the Tata Nano, the least expensive production car in the world, right from the time plans were announced till today - over a year after it hit the streets.
Whether you believe it's the people's car of the 21st century or a threat of over congestion on our already crowded city streets, the Nano is highly capable mode of transport for urban commuting.

While it may not be the ideal car for long distance highway driving, Tata Motors' latest endeavour really put the Nano's touring ability to the test.

To celebrate the inauguration of the company's new plant at Sanand in Gujarat, the Tata Nano Superdrive set off from there on June 2 on a 26 day voyage that saw the Nano caravans visit 36 cities around the country.

A total of 9 Nanos, split in three groups of three cars, traveled across India on three different routes christened after the colours of the Indian flag.

The 'Saffron Route' had the cars visiting Udaipur, Jaipur, Hisar, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Delhi, Meerut, Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur, Gwalior and Kota, while the 'White Route' passed through Indore, Bhopal, Nagpur, Raipur, Ranchi, Patna, Kolkata, Bhubneshwar, Vishakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Aurangabad. The 'Green Route' visited cities like Surat, Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Mangalore, Kochi, Coimbatore, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolhapur, Solapur, Nashik and Ahmedabad.The Superdrive branded Nanos also visited prominent landmarks in every city and prospective customers were given an opportunity to drive them as well.

We here at ZigWheels got a chance to be part of this epic drive on the leg on the 'Green Route' which took the cars from Bangalore to Kolhapur. Now while we've have always enjoyed driving the Nano around town, it was difficult to imagine how it would hold up while covering 600km in a day.

While a straight highway like NH4 isn't a challenge for most modern cars, one couldn't help wonder how comfortably the three Nanos would make it to journey's end. But just a few kilometers in, the cars had settled into a rhythm and were maintaining a steady speed of 80-90 km/h heading northward towards Kolhapur, eventually completing the distance in 10 hours.

All three of the Nanos managed an average driving speed of 60km/h without putting a single foot wrong at any time - not bad for a car which has just two cylinders and all of 623cc of cubic capacity.

From Kolhapur, the Nanos continued their epic journey with another set of drivers, finally culminating in Mumbai on June 28 where they were flagged in by Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons & Tata Motors. Now, a year since its launch, the Nano continues to grow strong and without a doubt, is here to stay!